CHAPTER 1

Familiar Eyes

Danny frowned at the mirror with an almost disinterested gaze, and the deep red orbs staring back at him. They should have been a bright neon green, but they weren't. He had just gotten used to seeing his ghostly eyes with his human form when they changed again. It had been a gradual process. He would catch his reflection in the mirror and see a light pink ring around his iris. Over time the ring grew wider and darker, edging out the green until all that was left was red.

His eyes didn't flash green anymore either, they hadn't since his first taste of the Ancients' power over a week ago. Instead, if one were to look closely, they could see flecks of green showing in the natural icy blue. A testament to his rising temperament. But at the moment, all Danny could see was red.

He shivered slightly, but not because of the cold. His arm was numb and he casually realized that blood was still dripping down onto his bedroom carpet. There was only one cut, Danny only ever made one cut. But things had been changing recently and he couldn't even feel it unless it was deep. He raised one of his hands to the mirror, smearing his blood across the face of his reflection. Hiding red eyes behind red blood. He still couldn't let the Ghostketeers glimpse his reflection because if they did, then they would know that Danny Fenton wasn't a normal ghost.

"Did you hear?"

"What?"

"A GIW operative went missing."

"Really? Which one, and when?"

"Operative K, and it was actually just after Amity was rebuilt."

"But that was three months ago!"

"I know!"

"Any news on the other one?"

"Which one?"

"Not N, the one Kraeva took, I think that guy's gone. The other guy."

"I think his code was H or something, but no one's seen him. Not since he ran away during the fight."

"Coward."

"I know."

"Hey, those three operative, H, K, and N right? They're the ones that…"

"Yeah, yeah they are…"

The whole school was whispering about it, although walking through the crowded halls filled with noise as they already were, those whispers had turned into shouts and Danny Fenton, with his enhanced hearing, didn't much like shouts. He stalked through the halls like a predator, and everyone noticed. Those that didn't know his secret had noticed the way he changed after the Battle of Amity Park. He didn't wear his baggy clothes anymore, revealing the muscles that most students had seen on the website, Casper High Hotties. It also revealed his scars. Not all of them of course, but the ones from ghost hunting. There was no use hiding it anymore.

Danny Fenton, once the pariah of Casper High, was cool. In fact, all the Ghostketeers were considered cool now, but only three of them had not taken it upon themselves to take advantage of this new status. Danny, Sam, and Morgan remained much the same as they had before. Minus, of course, Danny's current lethal look.

The students parted willingly for him, stepping to the side of the hall and pressing themselves against the lockers, not wanting Danny's wrath to be turned on them. When he finally stopped in front of Sam and Tucker, feet firmly planted, everyone expected him to explode. Over what, they weren't sure, but Danny had stopped and he looked angry, so an explosion appeared to be inevitable. He took a deep breath, and everyone tensed. There was a moment of stillness before anything happened.

BANG!

The students in the hall jumped in surprise as Danny suddenly slammed his head against a locker door.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

"Danny!" Sam cried out, leaping forwards. She shoved her hand in between Danny's forehead and his locker, squeezing her eyes shut for the burst of pain that would come. But it didn't. Instead she felt Danny's calloused fingers encircling her wrist and pulling her hand out of the predetermined path of his head.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

"Danny!" She shouted, pulling her wrist free of his grasp.

BANG!

Danny stopped, his head pressed against the locker, and his arms fell limp at his sides. Sam was gentle, as if dealing with a wounded animal, and slipped her slender fingers between her boyfriend's forehead and locker door, pulling him away. Danny tilted back a moment before dropping his head onto her shoulder. A few curious spectators noticed the sizeable dent in Danny's locker door, about the size of his forehead.

"What happened?" Sam asked, nodding briefly to Tucker. While the techno-geek struggled to open his best friend's locker, the halfa groaned unintelligibly into Sam's shoulder before speaking clearly.

"Knocking myself out can substitute for sleep, right?" As Sam draped her arms around Danny's back, he looped his arms underneath her own and over her shoulder to bury his fingers in his ebony locks.

"No, it actually can't," Sam scolded, glaring at the students that were still watching the exchange, before continuing more quietly. "When was the last time you slept?"

Danny had to think, really think, in order to answer Sam's question properly. Things had been hectic, to say the least, since Kraeva's army was defeated. Amity was restored, and an abundance of students had signed up for Ghostketeer training classes, although only those that had been members during the battle were actually referred to as Ghostketeers. Because of the obvious alliance between humans and ghosts, or at least Danny and ghosts, that had showed through during the fight tensions had relaxed between the two groups. Several of Danny's less intimidating allies had taken to visiting Amity often, and a few new amicable ghosts had shown their faces as well, but not everything was good. As a result of Kraeva's attack, the GIW had redoubled their efforts in enforcing the Anti-Ecto Act, especially when it was discovered that three of their operatives were missing. Danny was still the only person, living or dead, to know of Operative N's fate, and Operative H was suspected of fleeing during the fighting. K's disappearance only recently came to light, although it had happened quite some time ago.

Luckily for Danny, Operative O had been placed in charge of the Amity Park division, and only chose GIW that sympathized with ghosts and understood that they weren't all evil, or would at least follow orders to capture only specific ghosts. Apparently there were quite a few GIW that were good. But Danny's rampage during the fight three months ago had hindered his presence on the list of ghosts to be left alone and, orders or not, many GIW would still chase after him if they saw him.

While the GIW patrols were helping, since Danny could now spend more time in class rather than out of it hunting ghosts, it did make things a little harder when a ghost decided to bother him specifically and he had to fight in full view of the white suited agents. The GIW weren't the only problem. A few of the Amity Park Forces volunteers had opted to keep the ecto-weapons supplied them, in case a dire situation arose again, and had taken it upon themselves to ghost hunt on their own. Even worse, someone had apparently collected many of the dropped weapons during the activity following the battle, and they were now selling them to any third part in want of one. Although their numbers had diminished, Danny Phantom haters still existed, and the halfa couldn't help but feel that he was surrounded by a plethora of poorly trained, up-start Valeries.

Not only was there an abundance of frightened, untrained, gun-toting ghost haters, but there were many ghosts for them to hunt. Good ghosts weren't the only ones who had become brave enough to venture outside the Ghost Zone. Many mischievous characters had come over as well, and while at this point none of them had caused true mayhem, it would only be a matter of time before another Vortex, or Undergrowth, or Pariah came through. These ghosts were the reason Danny needed sleep.

During the day he was confident enough in the GIW and his parents to leave the weaker, more annoying ghosts to them. In the past three months he'd only been late for his first class twenty times, and he'd only had to leave class maybe fifteen to take care of a stronger ghost. But day time wasn't the problem. These mischievous ghosts were smart enough to realize that they could wreak more havoc at night, when fewer people were out to stop them, which meant Danny was missing a lot of sleep time to send them back to the Ghost Zone.

But that wasn't even the worst of it. Ever since Kraeva was defeated, Danny had been frequenting the Ghost Zone and keeping an eye out for yeti and Greek ghosts. He thought that with Kraeva dead his allies would be able to return, but so far he'd found nothing. If he wasn't fighting ghosts, he was looking for them.

"Danny?"

"Hmm?" Danny blinked, pulling away from Sam, and realized that he hadn't answered her yet. "Do power naps count?"

"No," Sam shook her head.

"Then… Monday, I think," he tilted his head back to look up at the glaringly bright fluorescent lights above him.

"Dude, three days?" Tucker gaped, and his reaction caused Danny to scowl.

"That doesn't sound right… What day is it today?" Danny asked.

"Thursday."

"No, the day."

"It's the tenth," Tucker said as he glanced at his phone.

"Oh, okay. Then Monday last week," Danny corrected his earlier answer, and was immediately confronted by an outraged girlfriend.

"What the hell Danny? You need to sleep, why haven't you been sleeping?" Sam grabbed Danny's shoulders, preventing him from walking away as the first bell rang.

"Ghosts, mostly, I think?" Danny shrugged and ducked out of Sam's grasp. He didn't want to worry his girlfriend. He grabbed his backpack from Tucker, which the techno-geek had retrieved from the locker after some struggle, and stepped out of reach. "It's fine. Come on, we need to go to class."

It was Sam's turn to scowl and she adjusted her own spider backpack and followed Danny down the hall, with Tucker running after them.

"I got him, Maddie!" The bellow of Jack Fenton could easily be recognized three blocks away by any resident of Amity Park. It was rather useful as a warning. Not that ghosts were around, ghosts were always around and nowadays someone was always there to shoot the bad ones down. Jack's bellow was the equivalent of a feral dog's growl. It warned that danger was near. Although the danger in those situations was a little different. Jack probably wouldn't lunge and attack viciously, unless you were a ghost, but he was famous for his clumsiness. Anti-ecto weapons may not truly harm normal humans, but it still left a hell of a bruise if you were hit by a stray blast.

So when Jack Fenton yelled, you ducked out of sight.

The large, orange jumpsuited man was barreling down the street with a gun half as big as he was hoisted on his shoulder. The Box Ghost was flying several feet in front of him, shrieking beware while pelting boxes at anything that moved. Said boxes had been stolen from a nearby thrift store, and whenever they hit something they burst open and scattered old but stylish clothes across the sidewalk. Once all ghosts and Fentons were clear from the area, those clothes would be gone in minutes. There was a reason everyone loved the Box Ghost, despite how annoying he was.

"Get back here ghost!"

The irony of the situation was not lost on Maddie as she watched her husband chase their adversary. This very same ghost had helped them fight the invading army, along with several others, and now they were hunting him down. But it was part of the job. When a ghost started to bother humans, it was the ghost hunters that were tasked with detaining them. Although the Fentons no longer hunted with the goal of experimentation. They had taken a leaf out of their son's book and captured ghosts to return them to the Ghost Zone. They even kept Fenton Thermos' with them at all times, although Jack and Maddie preferred to use their more creative weapons, such as the gun Jack was currently firing.

A blast of purple energy burst from the barrel and flew towards the Box Ghost.

"Fear m-uh-oh." The energy enveloped the Box Ghost and with a bright flash he was trapped inside a transparent purple orb.

"Beware the might of my boxy vengeance!" Boxes started to bounce off the orb, but nothing happened. "I cannot be confined within such a shape!"

"Save it, ghost," Maddie snapped, although her voice was softer than it had once been. Most of the venom could be traced back to the fact that the Box Ghost was just really annoying, and not because he was a ghost.

"I call shotgun," Jack shouted as they walked back to the Fenton RV, carrying the confining sphere in his arms.

"Of course, honey," Maddie smiled. Not like she would have let him drive anyways, she wanted to live to see Danny graduate high school at least. The ride back to Fenton Works was filled with constant chatter as Jack eagerly explained how the new gun worked to the Box Ghost. Maddie added the occasional word, correcting Jack whenever he said the wrong thing or started talking about fudge. Other than that, though, she was thinking of something else entirely.

Before, when ghosts were just the enemy and Danny Phantom was just another ectoplasmic entity, Maddie thought that ghost attacks were rare occurrences. Well, not rare exactly, but that they weren't as common as they turned out to be. An attack once a day, or once every couple of days. She was surprised when she found herself chasing no few than three ghosts a day, every day, since Danny started leaving some of the work to them. She was also worried. Danny used to take care of all ghost attacks, which meant that their three hunts a day were his three hunts a day. And he had been doing it for a year with no assistance.

Maddie was confident in her son's skills. He had proven that he was strong and capable. That isn't what she worried about. Maddie worried about the stress it would have caused. Taking care of an entire city, and some occasions even the world, all on his own. Throughout all that he hadn't approached her once about any sort of troubles, even though he must have had many. Everything that happened, he kept it all bottled up inside. Maddie wasn't a psychologist, but her daughter was well on the way to becoming one and she had picked up a few things along the way. And she knew that locking everything away wasn't healthy.

Maddie admitted that she had noticed Danny's growing temper over the past year, but she had attributed it to teenage hormones and school troubles. She hated that she had dismissed it all so easily, and decided that when Danny got home that night, she would try and talk to him.

"You're not allowed to patrol tonight."

"What?" Danny's head snapped up. He had been 'drawing' in his notebook, trying to see if it was possible to write puns in Esperanto. So far he hadn't had any luck.

"Patrol, tonight, no," Sam repeated. "You need to get some sleep. Tucker and I will go out, we'll take a few of the Ghostketeers. Everything will be fine."

Danny dropped his pencil and sighed, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands. He was tired, really tired. One night without patrolling couldn't hurt, and the new Ghostketeers-they really needed to find a name for the rookies-could use some experience. Danny had helped a little with their training, although his father did most of it. Jack was eager to teach his trade and no one could fault him for that. Meetings were held weekly at Fenton Works and open lessons occurred daily. Casper High had even lent some of the unused classrooms for these lessons. Last Danny heard, Principal Ishiyama was actually considering making the lessons into official classes in the school's curriculum. A lot of people supported the idea, though a few had some misgivings. Especially since it involved weaponry.

"I'll text Jazz and she'll lock you in the weapons vault. I'm sure you still haven't installed that inside handle, and it is fortified against ghosts," Sam threatened.

"Okay, fine. I won't patrol tonight," Danny ceded and stood up as the final bell rang.

"Good." Sam slipped her hand in his as they walked to their lockers.

"Hey lovebirds!"

"We are not lovebirds!" Danny and Sam chorused as they turned on Tucker, who had been jogging down the hall towards them.

"What? You're dating and I'm still not allowed to say that?" Tucker asked, and he actually looked a little disappointed.

"Nope," Danny shook his head.

"Why not?" Tucker whined.

"Because my new steel-toed boots say so," Sam hissed, and Tucker immediately took a step back.

"Dude, did you really have to buy her those?" Tucker asked as he moved a safe distance away.

"I did, actually. Usually, when you give someone a birthday present, you give them something they're gonna like," Danny grinned.

"Yeah, sure. It couldn't just be something written by Poe!" Tucker threw up his hands in exasperation and when Sam took a step towards him, he jumped away with a rather feminal squeak.

"Pff, wuss." Tucker spun around to face whoever had insulted him and saw a shock of blue hair disappearing.

"Sam, can I borrow one of your boots, and throw it at Morgan?"

"No."

Tucker groaned in defeat, but didn't ask again. Instead he changed the subject.

"What time is patrol tonight?" Sam fixed her glare on him. "What, what did I do?"

"Did you really already forget what happened this morning? Danny is sleeping tonight. We are patrolling, with the Ghostketeers. Maybe I'll invite Morgan," Sam smirked at Tucker's dismayed expression.

"You guys suck," Tucker grumbled.

"I can live with that. Let's just get to Fenton Works, I want to get some of this history project done tonight," Sam said.

Tucker nodded in agreement. "Would it be cheating if we talked to Dora?"

As Sam started to berate Tucker for trying to do the assignment without doing any actual work, Danny felt his eyes drawn to a narrow side street. There were clothes strewn about, which didn't surprise him much. He heard the Box Ghost had been flying around earlier that day. A few people were walking around and randomly picking up items. Danny preferred to think they would be returning the clothes to whoever they belonged to, but that was a long shot. But it wasn't them he was focused on. While everyone else was moving about, there was someone standing perfectly still. The figure looked a little blurry, and no one else was acknowledging them.

Danny didn't notice that he had stopped walking, and he couldn't seem to tear his eyes away. The figure's head turned and Danny could clearly make out their eyes.

They were a startlingly familiar shade of red.

'See' you next time!